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The images below show the latest pictures taken of the sun by the SOHO mission
The MDI (Michelson Doppler Imager) images shown here are taken in the continuum near the NiI 6768 Angstroms line. The most prominent solar features are the sunspots on the solar photosphere. This is very much how the Sun looks like in the visible range of the spectrum (for example, looking at it using special 'eclipse' glasses: Remember, do not ever look directly at the Sun!).
LASCO (Large Angle Spectrometric Coronagraph) is able to take images of the solar corona by blocking the light coming directly from the Sun with an occulter disk, creating an artificial eclipse within the instrument itself. The position of the solar disk is indicated in the images by the white circle. The most prominent feature of the corona are usually the coronal streamers, those nearly radial bands that can be seen both in C2 and C3. Occasionally, a coronal mass ejection can be see being expelled away from the Sun and crossing the fields of view of both coronagraphs. The shadow crossing from the lower left corner to the center of the image is the support for the occulter disk. C2 images show the inner solar corona up to 8.4 million kilometers (5.25 million miles) away from the Sun. C3 images have a larger field of view: They encompass 32 diameters of the Sun. To put this in perspective, the diameter of the images is 45 million kilometers (about 30 million miles) at the distance of the Sun, or half of the diameter of the orbit of Mercury. Many bright stars can be seen behind the Sun
EIT (Extreme ultraviolet Imaging Telescope) images the solar atmosphere at several wavelengths, and therefore, shows solar material at different temperatures. In the images taken at 304 Angstroms the bright material is at 60,000 to 80,000 degrees Kelvin. In those taken at 171, at 1 million degrees. 195 Angstrom images correspond to about 1.5 million Kelvin. The hotter the temperature, the higher you look in the solar atmosphere.
"Images Courtesy of SOHO consortium. SOHO is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA." |
